Is the cloud big enough to cover both of us?
It rained saltwater thick in winter.
Our time lost watching the sand breathe the water in,
rivulets leading to the ocean;
the shapes of trees.

It followed me back into Sunday
and the deep woods of New Jersey.
The snow was thin ribbons
speaking to the trees.
Asking them to carry the weight of their own water.
It’s easy to forget the warmth of leaves
with a cloud resting on your back.

I sleep back into a sunlit dream.

I ride the ripening of a beanstalk.

If clouds could drown me they would.

Beyond its billowing the sky fades into black.

If the sun could envelop me into atoms it would.

I wake up deep in covers.
A hole inside my lungs
lets the cold air ask me

What is a tree –
the sun, the soil, or the seed?
What are you
other than a living synthesis
without a seed?

I was irresponsible
almost obsessively so
I watched the grass grow green on the back porch
then turn gray with the stone
It took me almost a month
to brush off the dust
and breathe in a cloud
of something new gone old
I have spent a long time
coughing up a lover
from the very bottom of my throat

Your hair stuck to the shower curtain
The clogged drain claimingShe was once here
in the words of backed up water
you washed yourself off with.

The mirror remembers you
in the way that mirrors do
in smeared hand-shaped steam stains
right below mine
where you would make yourself
up in the morning
and down at night

When you would leave the little room
in a flood of watery air
half-shaking
because your body remembers me
in the way that bodies do
I would stay behind
take my eyes off of you
make contact with the mirror
for a minute or two
while I pretend to shave
and you pretend to fall asleep
lying in the other room